Appearances and Meetings
Below are the user groups, conferences and any other public events that I will be at and whether I am presenting or not. If you see me, come over and say “hi”, it’s always nice to chat face to face. I hardly ever bite…
I don’t include London Oracle Beers as that just resulted in way too many entries!
Future Events
Past Events
12th June 2018
Romania
A trip to the Romanian Oracle User Group where I presented on Instrumentation and why it is so vital.
29th-31st May
Riga Dev Days
I was delighted to have been accepted to speak at the Riga Dev Days, which has become a very popular event. I’ve never been to Lativa before so this was an especially interesting event for me
Wednesday 30th 18:00 How to Improve Your Code, Your Database, Your Life on instrumenting your code, your application, and making the future of the system much, much better.
22-23rd March
OUG Ireland conference
I did two talks and a panel session:
Thursday 22nd 12:10 How to do Performance Tuning which is more about the philosophy of performance tuning than actual individual skills. Many people know some of the skills, but the process of performance tuning is a much rare skill.
Friday 23rd How to Improve Your Code, Your Database, Your Life which is about one of my favourite annoyances – that people so often do not instrument their code or applications, and rarely in a systematic manner.
Friday 16:25 Panel Session on 18C and everything else. The Irish conference traditionally ends with an open panel session, which before now has run on for almost 2 hours until the last people escape home or go to the pub.
22 February 2018
UKOUG RAC CIA SIG
I am deputy chair of this SIG and I was also presenting on Physically Clustering Data for Phenomenal OLTP Performance
22-23 Jan 2018
ilOUG – Israel Oracle Uer Group.
I presented on:
The Heart of Oracle – How Does the Core RDBMS Work
Calling PL/SQL from SQL – Performance and Integrity
3-6 December 2017
The UKOUG Tech17 Conference.
This is my “home” conference. For the first time in many years I had not been involved in the organisation of the event and I did not even giving a normal presentation. However, I did some chairing.
Tuesday 5th: I’ll be one of the Question Masters for Jonathan Lewis’s CBO panel session. It’s becoming a tradition!
Tuesday 5th: Dev Vs. DBA Vs. DevOps roundtable. We will discuss the traditional divide between Development & DBA and how it can be better handled.
Update: Tuesday 5th, 10am. I went to a roundtable “argument” by Bryn Llewellyn & Kamil Stawiarski – and got pulled up to be a third party.
21-24th November
DOAG 2017 Conference
This was my second trip to what is now the largest Oracle Tech conference in Europe. I did two presentations (it was supposed to be three but I had to cancel one as illness prevented me preparing it):
Tuesday 21st – The Heart of Oracle – How Does the Core RDBMS Work
Thursday 23rd – Calling PL/SQL from SQL – Performance and Integrity
The session “Heart of Oracle” was totally full and I was asked to repeat it later in the day.
26th September
SOUG (Swiss Oracle User Group) conference day
I will be doing two talks:
The Heart of Oracle – How Does the Core RDBMS Work
The Forgotten Performance Tuning Trick – Clustering Your Data
19th September
A Webinar for ProHuddle
I will be doing my The Heart of Oracle – How Does the Core RDBMS Work talk, which is ideal for those new to Oracle tech or developers who want to better understand the general Oracle architecture. It will be my first ever Webinar.
1-2nd September
POUG (Polish) Annual Conference
I did the one talk, “Martin Widlake Goes Wild: TOP 10 Ways of Drinking Beer, Combined with Top 10 Ways of Bad Programming Habits. Because You Can’t Talk About It Being Sober”.
I was given the title as punishment for not submitting an abstract. I intend to present to the title.
27th April
The UKOUG Northern Technology SIG
This is a two-stream day up in Manchester, providing technical presentations to the UKOUG membership in the North of the country who find getting down to London (or similar) a long trip. I was involved in organising the event but was there as a delegate.
30th March
Club Oracle London (the link may now fail)
Presenting “The Forgotten Performance Tuning Trick – Clustering Your Data”.
As ever there will be free beer and pizza provided by Red Stack
23-24th March 2017
OUG Ireland conference 2017
Friday 24th presenting The Forgotten Performance Tuning Trick – Clustering your Data and sitting on the Q&A panel at the end of the conference.
9-11th March 2017
The OUGN (Norwegian) annual conference
I will be doing 2 presentations.
Thursday 9th – 5 Key Things about the Oracle Optimizer
Friday 10th – The Forgotten Performance Tuning Trick – Clustering Your Data and sitting on the “Ask the Oracle Aces/Ask Tom team” panel
23rd February 2017
RDBMS and RAC joint UKOUG SIG
I am a deputy chair for the RAC SIG and will be at the meeting just enjoying the event.
17th February 2017
Little POUG – Myself and Neil Chandler flew over to Poland to do an evening user group. Ami Aharonovich complete the agenda. I presented “When Things Go Wrong – My Career So Far”, which is a variation on my Disasters talk and how you can help avoid them. (The disasters, not my talks).
4th-7th December 2016
UKOUG Tech16 – UK Oracle User Group technical conference
This is “my conference” – the one I have been going to for 13 or 14 years, have presented at all but 1 or 2 of in that time and I now help organise. It is once more in Birmingham at the ICC and is being run alongside Apps16 and JDE16.
As I help organise the tech content (and this year I am the Tech 16 project lead) I have a lot to do before the event and duties when I am there, so I keep my presenting to a minimum. This year it is a single slot:
5th 09:00 The Heart of Oracle 12c -A review of How the Core RDBMS Works
Only now I am doing a roundtable too, about why developers suck and DBAs are arrogant:
… 18:45 DBA vs Developer Roundtable
15th-18th November
DOAG – German Oracle User Group 2016
I’m really happy to be going to DOAG for the first time. Since I decided to dedicate more time to overseas presenting I’ve felt I needed to be in the UK getting the UKOUG Tech conference ready at the time of year that DOAG occurs. But this year I decided to really try and make space for DOAG and I got papers accepted – online details here
15th 12:00 The Forgotten Performance Tuning Trick – Clustering Your Data
…. 15:00 Tips on Bulk Data Processing with SQL & PL/SQL
11th-13th November
BGOUG – Bulgarian Oracle User Group.
I’ll be presenting “The Heart of Oracle 12c -A review of How the Core RDBMS Works” and “The Forgotten Performance Tuning Trick – Clustering Your Data” which has been very popular with conference selection committees!
17th-18th October 2016
Slovenia User Group
17th The Forgotton Performance Tuning Trick – Clustering Your Data
18th Tips on Bulk Data Processing with SQL & PL/SQL
19th-21st October 2016
Croatian User Group
20th Tips on Bulk Data Processing with SQL & PL/SQL
21st The Forgotten Performance Tuning Trick – Clustering Your Data
11-13th October 2016
OTN Nordic TourO
I’m doing 3 of the 4 countries, with a mixture of my current set of talks across them.
11th – Copenhagen, “PL/SQL function from SQL” and then “The Heart Of Oracle (core architecture in under an hour)”
12th – Oslo, Bulk Data Processing methods with SQL and PL/SQL and
13th – Helsinki (I hope to get to see my friend Heil)
14th – Stockholm, probably without me so that I can go home for clean underwear before the next set of conferences…
7th -8th October
POUG -Polish Oracle User Group 1st international conference
This is the first international conference that the Polish Oracle User Group has organised and I’m very happy to be supporting it. It is organised in part by my friend Kamil, who owns the Polish “Ora600” company (nothing to do with me, lucky for them).
I’m doing two talks (that seem to be very popular with selection committees at present!):
7th 12:40 The Forgotten Performance Tuning Trick – Clustering Your Data
8th 12:40 Tips on Bulk Data Processing with SQL & PL/SQL
18th-22nd September 2016
Oracle Open World 2016
I think I have a slot in the popular lightening talks that the European user group does – 5 or 6 mins each until we run out time. The session is officially “EOUC Database ACES Share Their Favourite Database Things: Part I [UGF2630]” and “…part 2 [UGF2632]”. I will be on at the end if time allows, with an awesome talk on… something. But my main aim is to hit the slot time to the very second again…
19th-20th September 2016
OakTable World
This is held to the side of OOW16 (and yes, OOW16 know about it!). It is where the OakTable put on their own set of technical (and sometimes not-so-technical) talks as a nice balance to the official talks by Oracle. Expect less Cloud Froo-Froo and more real-world, technically deep stuff.
I offered to be the back-up presenter if someone had to drop out – and they have. So I’m going to talk about disasters.
5th July
Oracle Midlands
I was a delegate for this one, to see Jonathan Lewis do two sessions on indexing.
9th June
Club Oracle London
Presenting on Performance and Point-in-Time Issues with PL/SQL Functions
17th May
Oracle Midlands
I will present on Performance of PL/SQL functions called from SQL
3rd-4th March 2016
OUG Ireland 2016
Now expanded to 2 days, this multi-stream conference is growing from strength to strength. I am doing 2 talks:
3rd 15:05 The Heart of Oracle
4th 09:25 Performance of PL/SQL functions called from SQL
I was also scheduled to MC an optimizer panel session with Jonathan Lewis, Joze Senegacnik and A.N. Other but they had to pull out so I was promoted to Panel Member. The session was scheduled for 45 minutes at the end of the conference but proved so popular it just ran and ran on to an hour and a half!
26th Jan 2016
UKOUG Database SIG
I am presenting on Bulk data processing – SQL or PL/SQL
7th-9th December 2015
UKOUG Technology Conference 2015
ICC Birmingham
I will be there for the whole event in my role as Lead for the Database Streams. I’ll also be presenting an introductory talk on indexing.
7th 16:30 An introduction to Indexing
I also MC’d two panel sessions, with Neil Chandler:
7th 11:20 Cost based Optimizer Panel Session with Jonathan Lewis, Maria Colgan, Chris Antognini & Nigel Bayliss
8th 10:00 Database technical keynote with Dominic Giles, Maria Colgan & Penny Avril
20th-22nd November 2015
Bulgarian User Group conference
I’ll be giving two presentations, one on using Index Organized tables and one on bulk data processing with SQL and PL/SQL
My wife lived in Bulgaria for a short while in… 1988? So I hope to be able to bring her out with me.
25th-29th October
Oracle Open World 2015
Moscone Centre, San Francisco
I will be return to Oracle World this year. I did not manage to get a full paper selected so I will be able to just enjoy the show.
I will be doing 6-7 minutes on 12C improvements to Clustering Factor calculations.
13th October 2015
RAC & CIA SIG
Tenter House, London (near the Oracle City office)
This will be an afternoon/evening event. As Deputy Chair, I’ll be there and will take part in a panel session, answering questions from the floor.
22nd September 2015
Yorkshire DataBase usergroup (YoDB)
3rd YODB in Leeds, presented on SQL and PL/SQL
15th September 2015
UKOUG Database Server SIG
Oracle City Office
I’ll be presenting on PL/SQL & SQL performance – context switching.
.
1st July 2015
DBMS and RAC & CIA SIG
Hilton Hotel, Reading, Berkshire
This is a joint SIG between the DBMS and RAC, Cloud, Infrastructure & Availability SIG. It is in effect a mini 2-stream conference.
I will be presenting on “An introduction to Indexing” on the DBMS stream and I am deputy chair for the RAC & CIA SIG so I will be helping out on that stream too.
11th-12th June 2015
Harmony 2015
Swissotel, Tallin, Estonia
I will be presenting my “How Oracle Works in Under and Hour” talk. I am on straight after the keynote by Graham Wood and it looks like it is just me on the agenda at that time.
Later on I’ll be presenting on “Boosting Select Performance by Clustering Data”. Sadly, I have to leave shortly after that and miss the rest of the event so that I can be back in London for the Agenda Planning Day for UKOUG Tech15.
30th April 2015
Club Oracle #4,
103a Oxford Street, London
Presenting an updated version of “5 ways to advance your career through IT Disasters”
19th March 2015
OUG Ireland 2015
Croke Park Stadium, Dublin
AT last I am getting to support this event, I am presenting an updated version of Learning From Disasters and then, due to another speaker having to pull out for health reasons, I’m doing my Oracle Lego talk which is an introduction to Database Design.
5th March 2015
Coventry Building Society
This is actually a company-specific event, I am repeating my “How Oracle Works in under 50 minutes” for some of their IT department.
{Update: This ended up being a large crowd, something like 60 people. Some excellent questions and, as we had time, I extended the session and elaborated some points. Really enjoyed it.}
4th March 2015
RAC CIA SIG
Tenter House, Moorgate, London
I deputy Chair this SIG so I will be present. We are trying something new this year and having some of the SIGs run from mid-afternoon into the evening, to make it easier for people to attend and not lose a whole day out of the office.
I will be part of a panel session on answering questions from the floor.
{Update – this worked very well}.
26th February 2015
Club Oracle #3
103a Oxford Street, London
Again, I am there simply to enjoy the event and learn.
7th-10th December 2014
The UKOUG TECH 2015 conference
ACC Liverpool
Four days of multiple streams. I am the Database stream Chair for this event so as well as presenting a couple of times I will be introducing the event first thing Monday in Martin Bach’s talk (each talk at that time will have a committee member welcoming everyone) and hosting Maria Colgan for the database tech keynote. I’ll be generally “around” of course, I hope to see you there.
Presenting on Monday at 10am HOw Oracle Works in 50 minutes, an introductory overview of what the oracle RDBMS actually does!
Presenting on Wednesday 10am on Boosting performance by Clustering Data
12 November 2014
Club Oracle London #2
I’ll be there to support this excellent, local User Group. Free, excellent talks, beer & pizza laid on, excellent.
Dom Giles, Jason Anthony and Jason Arneil presenting
I’ll be there as simply an interested member of the audience.
14th October 2014
RAC CIA SIG, Birmingham
(It was supposed to be at Oracle office in Blythe Valley Park but moved short notice to hotel)
Filling my role as deputy chair for the event including being part of an open panel session.
16th September 2014
Oracle Midlands #OM5
Speaking on Boosting performance by clustering data.
This got recorded and put up on YouTube!
16th July 2014
Combined RAC CIA and RDBMS SIG, 110 Rochester Row, London
Presenting on “The first few things you need to know about Exadata”. This will be the last outing for this talk. The tech is moving on and my experience is NOT, so I cannot continue to speak with any authority.
14th July 2014
Oracle Midlands #OM4
I will be doing a lightning talk on “Breaking Exadata” (just follow the advice of oracle sales idiots and not their brilliant pre-sales tech people) and you can see some details in my own blog post advertising it.
3rd July 2014
Club Oracle London #1
Workers Educational Centre, 96-100 Clifton Street.
Inaugural meeting of this local user group backed by Jonathan Lewis and e-DBA, I’ll be there supporting this new initiative but not talking (OK, when do I ever shut up totally).
2nd April 2014
Last AIM sig (was RAC SIG)
Thames Valley Park
I’m hosting the Q&A session but more importantly, I’ve badgered my old mate Dave Webster from Betfair to talk again, in with a strong line-up – Joel Goodman, Chris Lawless, Jason Arneil, Richard Bingham.
25th March 2014
Oracle Midlands #OM2
Attending just to learn and support this regional user group. Graham Wood is there!
1st-4th December 2013
The 2013 UKOUG Technical Conference
Manchester Central Convention Complex
Sunday 1st, Joint presentation with Neil Chandler on “10046 Trace – Powerful or Pointless in the Real World”
I’ll be around from Super Sunday for the whole conference, chairing some sessions but mostly just enjoying the event.
22nd October 2013
UKOUG AIM SIG
Oracle office, Blythe Valley Park, Birmingham.
Deputy chair and will be on the Q&A panel
8th October 2013
UKOUG DBMS SIG
Thames Valley Park, Reading
Presenting on SQL Tuning Sets & Baselines to provide performance stability during 10g-11g migrations
18th July 2013
London?
Combined UKOUG AIM & DBMS SIG
I’ll be presenting A Technical Introduction to Exadata
23rd April 2013
UKOUG AIM SIG
Just attending, as Deputy Chair.
17th-19th April 2013
Norwegian User Group conference
Oslo, Norway and Colour Line Ferry to Kiel
Wednesday I will be presenting on Hiding data with Row Level Security, Thursday is IT Disasters and Friday An Introduction to SQL Tuning
11th-13th February 2013
Rocky Mountain User Group Training Days
Colorado convention center, Colorado US.
A rare trip for me to the US now that I pay my own way. As well as being an ideal opportunity to meet some US people I only currently know online I’ll be presenting on The first 5 things to know about Exadata.
2nd-5th December 2012
The 2012 UKOUG Oracle Conference
International Conference Center, Birmingham
Here we go again, four days of great talks, meeting friends, beers, chatting, presenting, meeting new people and, Oh, Oracle stuff.
For once I am keeping the presenting duties down, just doing the Oaktable Sunday and presenting on Guiding Principles for Gathering Statistics (or not).
15th-16th October 2012
Slovenia User Group
This will be my first trip to Slovenia, meeting up with Joze Senegacnik and others.
Presenting on First 5 things to know about Exadata, Principles of VLDBs {without Exadata} and a keynote on Learning from IT Disasters.
3rd July 2012
UKOUG AIM SIG
The Met, Leeds
I went to Leeds University and I have not been up there for a couple of years, so it will be good to make a return visit
Presenting on The First Few Things you need to know about Exadata
21st-24th March
Norwegian User Group conference
This user group meeting is on a boat, which was concerning to me as I get seasick easily, but they are having a day on-land first and I have the option of getting off the boat at Kiel if it is all too much.
This will be my first overseas conference since my two trips to OOW in the 2000’s
Presenting twice, on Index Organised Tables and Principles of VLDBs
{Sorry, I failed to update this for a while, will back-fill if only for my own records!}
14th March 2012
First AIM SIG – merger of the RAC and M&I SIGs
I’m just a punter at this one unless my chairing of the M&I SIG results in me taking some role in the new SIG.
29th Feb 2012
UKOUG Scottish SIG
Oracle Linlithgow
presenting on Index Organised Tables
5th-7th December 2011
The 2011 UKOUG Oracle Technical conference.
International Conference Centre, Birmingham (where else?!)
The usual three days of meeting friends, going to talks, drinking in pubs, going to more talks and having a great time.
Presenting on Monday morning at 11:05 on Oracle Lego – an introduction to Database Design and again on Wednesday at 14:25 on Index Organized Tables.
4th December 2011
OakTable Sunday
ICC, Birmingham.
A selection of some of the OakTable talks from the following UKOUG conference, being previewed in smaller quarters. I’ll be presenting on the benefits and drawbacks of Index Organised Tables.
Tues 27th September 2011
UKOUG Management and Infrastructure SIG
Oracle City Office, London
I chair this SIG and I will also be presenting with Neil Chandler on 10046, do you need to go that deep or not. This is the last MI SIG meeting before we merge with the RAC&HA SIG.
24th March 2011
UKOUG Back to Basics special event
Oracle City Office, London
This is a day of technical talks aimed at those new to Oracle RDBMS.
It will be the first showing in 3 or 4 years of my “5 ways to advance your career through IT Disasters”. I’m really looking forward to it.
19th January 2011
UKOUG UNIX SIG
Oracle City Office, London
First UNIX SIG of the year and an opportunity for me to repeat the Stats talk from the conference which I messed up so badly. {It went much better this time}.
29th November – 1st December 2010
The UKOUG Technology and E-Business suite conference
International Conference Centre, Birmingham
The annual UKOUG conference, a tad earlier this year but same place, same deal, same three days of good stuff. I’ll be presenting once, first thing Tuesday morning on best methods for gathering all types of statistics – object, system, dictionary and fixed_objects.
5th October 2010
UKOUG Management and Infrastructure SIG
Oracle City Office, London
For once I am simply chairing and not presenting.
29th April 2010
UKOUG Northern Server Technology Day
Hilton City, Leeds
Presenting on Database Statistics Best Practices, ie how to get gather (or not!) statistics to give you good and yet stable performance.
30th March 2010
UKOUG Management and Infrastructure SIG
Oracle City Office, London
This is my SIG so I will be chairing for the day and also presenting on Database Statistics Best Practices.
10th March 2010
UKOUG DBMS SIG
Oracle TVP, Reading
Just going as a delegate to this one, very interested to see CERN talk about testing and validating backups and the talk on rolling forward very large physical databases.
30th November-2nd December 2009
The UKOUG Technology and E-Business suite conference
International Conference Centre, Birmingham (where else?!)
The Annual UKOUG technology conference, the best Oracle meeting going. Back to 3 days, back to concentrating on technology.
All my talks were rejected, but I’ll still be there – it will be nice to just enjoy the event and not worry about preparing talks {who do I think I am kidding?}
1st October 2009
Management and Infrastructure SIG, UKOUG
Oracle City Office, London
I chair the MI Special Interest Group
I’m giving the presenting a rest this time, the delegates get so see and hear enough from me already!
7-8th September 2009
Oracle Life Science User Group Conference 2009 CANCELLED
{Sadly, cancelled due to low numbers. I was REALLY looking forward to this one too}
Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridge
This is the annual conference of the International Oracle Life Science User Group and I have been asked to present but the actual topic is not decided yet. I used to be one of the directors of the user group, and worked as the Sanger, so it will be great to meet up with some old friends.
16th June 2009
RAC and High Availability SIG
One Great George Street, London
I’m just along as a delegate for this one.
3rd June 2009
Management and Infrastructure SIG, UKOUG
Oracle City Office, London
I chair the MI Special Interest Group
I will also be presenting on “Being an I.T Manager”
20th May 2009
UNIX SIG, UKOUG
Wolverhampton Science Park
I will be presenting on “Tuning for non-experts”. It is an introductory presentation, aimed and DBAs and Developers who have little experience in tuning and might find the more advanced stuff currently looks more like vooodoo magic than logic.
28th April 2009
Northern Server Technology day, UKOUG
Park Inn hotel, York
A two-stream event of technical talks and one by me on “IT Disasters, your Route to a Brighter Future”.
My talk is an attempt at humour in respect of disasters I have been around and what I learnt.
And many more but we are getting onto the realms of history here.
Martin Widlake's Yet Another Oracle Blog 
“All my talks were rejected, but I’ll still be there ”
Just for curiosity what were they about ?
It would be nice to watch you presentations which I have never had chance to.
I will be there on Wednesday only because of recession 🙂 I hope I would catch you any of Tanel Poder sessions, I plan to attend all of them and as a last one I need to choose one of the last two between Wolfgang Breitling or Husnu Sensoys
http://oraclemidlands.com/archive?e=5 will bring up the #om5 event details. I need to add a “copy link” button.
Also, good to see you updated this page 🙂 it was on 2012 until a couple months ago?
Thanks Mike, I’ve updated the links. Yes, I failed to update this for a long time. I’m slowly refreshing bits of my online presence
Make sure you attend all the London events, it’s the only reason I know there’s been 4 so far 😛 They need a #loc5 / #cora5 tag to keep track